X-43A workers flying high on craft's success
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press on Thursday, April 1, 2004.
By ALLISON GATLIN
Valley Press Staff Writer

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EDWARDS AFB - It was enough to make grown men cry.
After more than seven years of effort and one dismal failed attempt, the men and women of NASA's Hyper-X program achieved their goal Saturday, sending the X-43A experimental aircraft streaking across the sky at Mach 7 and setting a new record for air-breathing, nonrocket flight.

The flight was the first flight test of a supersonic combustion ramjet - or scramjet - engine integrated with an airframe.

The triumphant flight, overcoming technical hurdles and successfully meeting a string of first-time events, was greeted with raucous cheers, hugs and even a few misty eyes among those gathered in the control and conference rooms at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center to witness the history-making flight.

"It's been a long time coming for a lot of people," said Griffin Corpening , Dryden's chief engineer on the project.

Corpening, 48, started working on hypersonic research as a graduate student at the University of Maryland in 1983, eventually coming to Dryden specifically to have the opportunity to see a hypersonic vehicle fly. His involvement with the X-43A began in a peripheral role at the start of the project in 1996, before he was named chief engineer in 1998.

"I will be forever grateful to have the opportunity to be part of this team," he said. "It certainly represents a capstone on my career. It's hard to top."

Dryden project manager Joel Sitz , 44, came on board in 1998, after a stint as the deputy project manager on an aviation safety project.

"It was a pretty easy decision (to join Hyper-X)," he said, citing the high-risk element of the project, attempting something that never had been accomplished before. "That's why I joined NASA, because they do those kinds of things."

Test conductor Brad Neal , 41, oversees the operational aspect of the test program, coordinating the various flight elements. He joined the X-43A project in 1999, coming from another high-speed operation with the SR-71, and was named the lead operations engineer in 2000.

"From a professional standpoint, this was a big accomplishment," Neal said. "But in my mind, that's what I get paid to do. It just happens that this was a one-of-a-kind vehicle."

Only 12 feet long and weighing approximately 3,000 pounds, the X-43A is shaped like a flat wedge with fins. The small research aircraft consists largely of the scramjet engine and supporting systems.

In Saturday's test, the vehicle's experimental engine successfully ran for slightly more than 10 seconds, providing data that researchers will use to validate the tools used to design and evaluate future scramjet engines.

High and lows

The project team has survived a series of highs and lows over the years. The lowest point was the failure of the first flight attempt, in June 2001. The Pegasus rocket booster responsible for propelling the X-43A to an altitude of 100,000 feet and Mach 7 went out of control, forcing engineers to deliberately destroy it before the experimental aircraft could be released.

That first flight "was like a death in the family," Sitz said.

Saturday, on the other hand, was "the absolute high," he said. "I don't think we've come down yet."

The preparation for the first flight three years ago was "very, very intense," Corpening said. When the day dawned, "we had done everything we felt reasonable. I still feel that, even in hindsight."

The dejection within the control room was palpable when it became clear that the flight was doomed. "It was a poignant moment," he said.

NASA convened a mishap investigation board, which determined that the loads on the control fins of the Orbital Sciences' Pegasus rocket booster were greater than predicted, causing the fins to fail and sending the rocket out of control.

Throughout the process, nobody involved in the project placed blame for the failure. "We all took responsibility," Corpening said.

The investigation into the mishap took months to complete.

"That was probably the hardest part of the project for me," Corpening said.

Before then, project had developed into a cohesive team, with control over its own actions. "All of a sudden we were no longer in the driver's seat, the MIB was," he said.

"I can't remember too many things as good as getting our project back" when the investigation was completed, he said.

The return to flight meant overcoming a daunting series of technical hurdles, basically rethinking the entire system of rocket booster and experimental vehicle.

With so much riding on the outcome of the second flight - including the future of hypersonic research within NASA - project members were apprehensive as the day approached.

The night before the flight, many went out to the vehicle mounted beneath the B-52 carrier aircraft and "wished it a good voyage," Corpening said.

Each step in the flight itself, each milepost successfully passed, was a moment of growing elation and relief.

"My career peaked several times during that flight," Sitz said.

"Several times I was simply overwhelmed that we made it," Corpening said.

Disaster averted

The otherwise picture-perfect flight did have one potentially disastrous glitch. On its way to the launch zone, the venerable B-52 carrier aircraft - the same one used to launch the X-15 rocket plane in the 1960s and 1970s - developed a fuel-transfer problem.

"That was a real concern that had the potential to stop the launch," Neal said. The best-case scenario was that the bomber and its precious cargo would safely land elsewhere. The worst-case was that controllers would have to abandon the X-43A "stack," the vehicle and rocket booster, in order to save the B-52.

Disaster was averted, however, with the aid of the "top-notch team of maintainers" for the temperamental bomber, Neal said. Long-time maintainer Gary Beard was called into the control room, where he talked the pilots through a fix to the problem.

"The B-52 takes a lot of tender loving care," Neal said, something the experienced team has learned to accommodate over the years. The bomber's age - it was first flown in 1955 - makes finding parts difficult and requires special expertise to keep it operating.

The flight had the added challenge of coordinating the efforts of controllers at Dryden, as well as the launch area in the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division Sea Range. In addition, it meant working with Air Force officials at Edwards Air Force Base and the F/A-22 flight test program, which agreed to suspend its own flight test activities for the day to accommodate the project.

"From my standpoint, this was the biggest (flight operation) I've ever seen, even at Dryden, in a long time," Neal said.

Out of the launch operators' control, however, was the weather, which remained questionable right up until the morning of the flight.

"I developed an appreciation for how many things have to go right for this to go," Sitz said.

The X-43A is essentially a disposable aircraft, capable of a one-time flight that ends with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The vehicle and its Pegasus rocket booster are not intended to be retrieved.

This one-shot, everything-on-the-line aspect to the project gave the flight an added importance and pressure to succeed.

"In a normal Dryden operation, you can come back and fly another day," Corpening said. "Once this drops from the B-52, that's it."

Team made it possible

The entire Hyper-X program is the work of a large team, bringing together several hundred people from NASA and commercial interests.

The program is led jointly by Dryden and NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia.

Orbital Sciences Corp. provided the modified Pegasus rocket booster that propelled the experimental aircraft to the launch point for firing its own engine. The X-43A vehicle and engine was manufactured by ATK GASL (formerly MicroCraft Inc.) of Tennessee. The Boeing Co. Phantom Works in Huntington Beach designed the thermal protection and propulsion control systems.

Many of those involved in Saturday's flight had been with the program from the beginning.

"It really takes a lot of stamina to watch three to four years of work go into the ocean and pick yourself up and say we have to go on," Corpening said.

"This team was so close," Sitz said. "I feel like (Neal and Corpening) are my brothers, not team members."

In addition to those who actually worked on the program are the family members who also sacrificed for the long hours and lost weekends team members put into making the project a success.

"When it comes down to the final push, you've got to have family behind you," Corpening said. "They're part of it."

One member of the team unable to share in the triumphant flight was remembered nonetheless.

Douglas Clark Taylor was an avionics technician on the program who succumbed to cancer last year. The team placed a decal on the rocket booster in memory of him and in honor of his work on the project, and dedicated the flight to him.

"Doug was so enthusiastic about what Dryden was doing," Corpening said.

Hypersonic future

With scant time to catch their breath, the Hyper-X team already is preparing for the flight of the third and final X-43A vehicle in the fall, in which the goal is to reach Mach 10.

Beyond that, the future of hypersonic research within NASA is unclear.

"I don't know if we know where hypersonic is going yet, but a lot of high-level people are very excited about it," Sitz said.

Scramjets have an advantage over conventional rocket and turbojet engines in that they are more efficient. These air-breathing engines do not have to carry oxidizers on board to mix with fuel. Instead, they use oxygen from the air. For space launch purposes, this means lighter launch vehicles with more payload capacity. The scramjet technology may have applications for the space exploration mission that is now at the core of NASA's endeavors.

"What I hope happens is that, as we go down this path and the dust settles, people will once again appreciate the higher efficiency and lower cost that hypersonic scramjet vehicles provide," Corpening said.

The Department of Defense is interested in the technology for future long-range strike capabilities and is aggressively pursuing it, Sitz said.

The next great technical hurdle for the technology is to make it larger and reusable.

"We need to get back to X-15 type operations where we can fly 200 of these over a period of years," Sitz said.

While Saturday's test flight validated the approach, much more needs to be done to make such vehicles operational.

"What we had in this system was extremely maintenance-intensive and temperamental," Neal said.

For these initial tests of the engine system, a disposable vehicle was chosen to avoid the added complications of creating a vehicle with the ability to land, diluting the focus on the intended hypersonic research. In addition, landing gear and its attendant systems would have added weight to a vehicle that was already jam-packed.

agatlin@avpress.com

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